While folks are marching in DC, don’t forget that back in the other Washington, ballots are dropping and a class of people could lose their rights.  Sometimes is sucks to be right: Reject 71 has a sugar daddy after all.  Remember this prognostication?

On October 12th, two days before the state starts mailing out ballots to voters, a large donor ban goes into effect in Washington.  …I think that [Protect Marriage Washington] has stopped asking for cash because they expect an external entity to buy big media time for them. …Once those ads are on the air, at the time when we need cash the most, it’ll be legally impossible for generous donors to give more [than $5,000]. …

We all know how National Organization for Marriage and allied organizations have been riding roughshod over state campaign finance regulations in Iowa and Maine.  To them, the end (snuffing out legal protections for families) justifies the means (ignoring campaign laws).  All indications are that the same is about to happen here in Washington.  The only way to defend against this dirty plan is to CONTRIBUTE. NOW.  Before it’s not possible to give more at the time it’s needed most.

Well, it looks like I was right.  Details below the fold.  If you have the resources to give a gift over $5,000, you need to give now.  The most any individual can give after October 12th is $5,000.  Whatever your total giving ability is, please give any amount over $5,000 now.  All large donations must be in the WAFST campaign manager’s hands by the end of the day Oct. 12th, so please give online if you can.  If you prefer to give by check, do not mail it because it will not reach the campaign in time.  Instead, email the campaign at donate@approve71.org and someone will come to pick up the check from you.  The campaign has people in Washington DC this weekend, so if you are reading this from DC, we can still pick up your check!

Small and medium donors, please be ready to step up to the plate.Dominic over at SLOG has the details on the dirty.

Vote Reject R-71, a political action committee, registered with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission yesterday to campaign against Referendum 71, thereby attempting to repeal the state’s domestic-partnership law. (Read the filing paperwork here: .pdf.)

Dave Mortenson, a conservative campaign consultant who filed the PAC, says, “A bunch of individuals contacted me to see if we could raise some money really quick.” He says, “I am not going to share who I’ve been talking to, but if we do get the money, we will report it.” Are these religious groups, corporations, wealthy donors? “We are working them all,” says Mortenson.

October 12 is the deadline for donations over $5000, according to state campaign rules.

Can the group raise a large sum of money before Tuesday? “I’m pretty optimistic, let me put it that way,” says Mortensen, who has worked on Republican legislative campaigns since the 1980s.

At the moment, Protect Marriage Washington has raised $60K, while the Approve 71 groups Washington Families Standing Together and HRC Approve Referendum 71 have raised $779K and $73K, respectively.  The Approve 71 campaign anticipated this.  Here’s their response:

Filing a new PAC is a “giant red flag” that anti-gay forces are about to dump loads of cash into the anti-gay Reject R-71 campaign, says WAFST campaign manager Josh Friedes. Much of the money for California’s anti-gay Prop 8 came in the final weeks before the election.

“The filing of a PAC a few days before the cutoff suggests that this is a strategy to significantly fund an anti-gay campaign but have it cloaked in secrecy until such a time that that it is difficult to respond because of the state’s campaign finance laws,” says Friedes.

“We won’t know until how much money is dumped in until after the cut-off, so it will be hard to make it up in smaller contributions,” Friedes says. “Anybody who can donate over $5,000 should do so now.”

In sharp contrast to Protect Marriage Washington’s crass and cynical use of the state’s campaign finance laws to cloak their funds, and their earlier attempts to hide the identity of their donors, WAFST has been clear and transparent in their financial reporting, proudly listing from day one the names of individual donors as required by state law.  Only bandits wear masks.